


Intermission

by sir_not_appearing_in_this_archive



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pining, one-sided
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 06:44:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4425380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sir_not_appearing_in_this_archive/pseuds/sir_not_appearing_in_this_archive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal makes a decision that was never really a choice at all.</p><p>[Between Hannibal leaving Will's house and Jack Crawford arriving. S03E07, mostly canon compliant]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intermission

**Author's Note:**

> this is basically entirely [this loser's](http://little-blackbirds.tumblr.com/) fault. just a drabble to deal with the fact i'm dead inside

Snow drifted down out of the twilight, placid now, but Hannibal knew this was only the beginning of something much wilder than a dusting. He had a sense about beginnings and could usually tell where they were headed. It was only ever on rare occasions that he was surprised.

Will Graham surprised him. He’d been surprising Hannibal since the first time they met, but none of it had ever hurt before, not like this.

People, by and large, were like puzzles made for children, so simple he could solve them with a glance. Sometimes he encountered a person who took more work, but in the end—after one conversation, or ten—he could see right through them. But Will was a virus, constantly adapting to Hannibal’s efforts to classify him. And that was absolutely intoxicating.

But worse than that—or better—was that Will could not only understand him, but empathize with him. The only person in the world. In retrospect this was inevitable. Hannibal could no more have helped himself than sprouted wings.

The pain, though. That was most surprising of all. But even that had tinges of pleasure in it. A shiver ran up his spine as he recalled the sensation of being branded. What he felt for Will ran deeper than that, but it burned through him with the same icy fire that made every nerve ending in his entire body deliciously raw.

A snowflake landed on his eyelash and he blinked it away. Night had truly fallen now. He turned his head slightly to listen to Chiyoh approach.

“You’re not leaving.” A simple statement brushed with disappointment.

“I’m not sure yet.” The words slipped out before he realized he’d been thinking them. He wasn’t himself now, he was self-aware enough to know that much. Will wasn’t like a fine wine, he was a drug.

“If you stay—”

“I know what will happen if I stay.” Incarceration, possibly the death penalty. He’d more than earned it. But even the thought of death didn’t feel real to him in the wake of Will’s renouncement.

Somehow the center of the universe was the dim yellow light shining out of a dark house. Will’s bathroom light was on. The surrounding countryside was a void, or perhaps Hannibal only projected his own heart onto the landscape.

“Why?”

Hannibal turned to face Chiyoh at last and felt the corner of his mouth twitch into a wry smile. “You already know.”

“Why _him_?” Chiyoh wasn’t jealous, only protective.

Hannibal didn’t respond. He couldn’t. Every previous relationship he’d had held no real love. He loved those people like a child loves a toy. Will was, as in all things, different. Sometimes Hannibal felt as if the ground beneath him was being eroded by Will Graham, sand slipping away into an endless ocean. He closed his eyes and felt snow brush his cheeks.

“You spoke to him yourself. Isn’t it obvious?”

“He’s an ass. Why do you think I pushed him off that train?”

“Because he ripped you out of your prison. You’d forgotten how painful freedom can be.” He got the words out with a level voice, but they turned on him, wrapped around his throat and squeezed.

The snow turned from lazy to insistent, falling faster now.

He did not come to the realization. The knowledge had been in the back of his mind from the moment Will rebuked him. But as Hannibal stared at the driving snow he allowed himself to face it. Not just the idea of it, either, every tiny facet, every little humiliation that had driven him to be so meticulous all these years.

Hannibal supposed the cliche was true. Love makes one stupid.

The temperature continued to plummet but he didn’t feel the creeping cold anymore than he felt the throbbing ache of his fresh brand. He closed his eyes and opened them in Florence. A soft spring breeze ruffled his hair as he wrapped his arms around Will’s bare torso, pressed his lips to the naked hollow of Will’s throat.

 

 

Will Graham’s house was empty, a dead husk. The heat was on but Will shivered as he stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He’d sat for hours on his bed, trying to wrap his mind around a world without Hannibal fucking Lecter, but all he’d ended up with was a headache. Now he stood like a zombie trapped by the human habits of nighttime ritual. He had a vague uneasy feeling that he should be brushing his teeth but instead he’d been caught by his own eyes. They were a stranger’s. The only person’s head he couldn’t seem to crawl inside was his own.

He kept waiting for the brush of a dog nosing at his leg, snuffling his hand, whining for food or to be let outside. Their absence made this place an unfamiliar building.

His hands shook as he gripped the edges of the sink. He couldn’t unravel yet. Will knew a long conversation with Jack Crawford was in his immediate future. Everything beyond was uncertain.

His empty eyes watched him from the mirror as he thought about his last moments with Hannibal. So much of his life had been consumed by the man, but in the moment Will felt nothing. Even the memory had faded to gray, to dust. He thought cutting Hannibal out of his life would hurt—a ghost of a knife slipped across his stomach, tracing a trail of remembered fire—but he was numb all over. His heart was like this house, a shell. Empty.

Finally free from Hannibal and Will Graham couldn’t summon a single genuine emotion. He’d been hollowed out. When Hannibal walked out the door (hiding tears, Will would have sworn) he’d taken the contents of Will’s body with him just as surely as if he’d laid Will out on a butcher’s table.

 

 

The sirens pulled Hannibal out of his memory palace and he smiled. Chiyoh had left his side but wasn’t gone. He could feel her waiting in the trees above him, watching him through her rifle scope. The snow was slacking off, nearing its end. Hannibal watched the FBI vehicles pull into Will’s driveway, watched the man himself step out onto his porch. The sight of him made something deep inside Hannibal ache, hunger in a way he wasn’t used to. He brushed snow off his coat and took a step forward.

Hannibal had a sense about endings, too. This wasn’t an end.


End file.
